Miss Strang Chapter 58

Miss Strang Chapter 58
By Governess

* * * * *
This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
* * * * *

Chapter 58

For John's sake I hoped he would be able to show the fortitude in adversity that would win him relief. But part of me, perhaps the larger part, was enjoying seeing him so discomfited. The sight of him, seated in the chair, naked but for my soft velvet dress against his pale boyish skin, and with his hands tightly secured, all aroused me deeply. The thought that he might remain so petticoated and treated as a small girl beyond the immediate punishment was immensely affecting. My throat was dry with a breathless expectation and longing.

Miss Strang bent forward and pulled the velvet dress down over his knees.

"We had better hide that little deceiving worm between your legs, John. It may lead people to think you are a big strong boy full of courage and daring."

She smiled.

"And if Oliver sees it he may become envious."

She stood before him and rested the tawse on his left palm.

"Look at me, John. I will not have a boy casting his eyes down when he is having his hands strapped. It is the height of bad manners. Look at me."

He raised his eyes. They were damp and glistening. His eyelashes were dark and long. In his dress he looked an attractive tomboy. But he was not a tomboy. He was a little sissy boy who couldn't take his punishment without crying.

"And how many strokes have you had, John?"

He remained looking at her.

"T . . . two, Miss Strang."

"Correct. And how many were you to receive?"

"Twelve, Miss Strang."

"So, how strokes have still to be given?"

There was a pause, as he struggled to make his brain work.

"Quickly now. How many?"

"Ten, Miss Strang."

"Yes. And count yourself fortunate that I am not commencing the punishment again from the beginning. Or even doubling it."

She pulled the tawse off his palm, and let it drop so that it hung by her side.

"Oliver."

Her voice brought me immediately to attention.

"Yes, Miss Strang?"

"Oliver, after each stroke of the tawse, I would like you to recite a short rhyme for John's benefit. Can you do that?"

"Yes, I . . . I think so, Miss Strang."

"I am sure you can. After each stoke has been delivered and when John has stopped any writhing and squealing, you will say in a clear voice,

Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby John
Sitting in shame with a little dress on.

Repeat it."

I did so. I felt a tremble in the pit of my stomach at having to do such a thing. Even though John had shown little courage or endurance, he now had the opportunity of redeeming himself. But to remind him after each stroke of his lack of manliness . . . "

I watched as the tawse was raised and draped over Miss Strang's shoulder. I glanced at John. There is a torture that consists of being bound to a chair from which many spikes protrude. Any movement of the victim causes excruciating pain, driving the spikes deeper into the flesh. The victim endeavours to remain still, rigid, racked with fearful anxiety. And that is how John looked. A stiff, frozen look upon his face. Waiting for the tawse to descend across his small hands, hands forcibly offered to his governess to beat raw and reduce to smarting ineptitude.

The strap descended. He bucked and roared, slipping forward on the smooth surface of the seat, but kept from sliding off by the restraints around his wrists. She waited until he had composed himself a little. He wriggled back in the chair, flushed and tearful

"Well, Oliver?"

"Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby John
Sitting in shame with a little dress on"

Miss Strang smiled.

"And still a cry baby, I am afraid to say."

She raised the tawse and it swung heavily down. He screamed and tore at his hand, but this only tightened the knots. He again slipped forward on the seat pivoting on his wrists like a swing in a fairground. When his roaring had abated she looked at me, and nodded.

"Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby John
Sitting in shame with a little dress on"

"And sit up, John."

He wriggled up pushing against his bonds. Miss Strang frowned. She then walked across to her desk and retrieved the long leather restraining strap that had been used to secure me to the prie dieu. She passed it across his waist and around the back of the chair, threading the end through the buckle and pulling it tight. He was now secured in an upright seated position.

"There. That should help to stop you sliding around, John."

She waited.

"And what do you say?"

"Th . . . thank you , Miss Strang."

The tawse was again raised and brought down with a succulent, smacking noise. Each stroke as well as smarting and inflaming his palms was also driving the backs of his hand on to the carved lion's paw, bruising his fingers and knuckles.

I remembered Miss Hazel, a nanny who had cared for me when I was much younger, probably when I was four or five. It is strange how memories are often recalled as a scene enacted in a theatre. She had taught me to read. And this she had done by placing a book on a stand, a reading stand. I could see myself, a little girl, with her hair long, seated upon a stool. Miss Hazel was sitting beside me on my right and held my hand by the wrist. In her other hand she held a wooden ruler. Every mistake I made was first corrected and then rewarded with a hard smack of the ruler across my knuckles. At other times I was spanked for naughtiness. But there seemed something particularly calculating and cruel about smacking my bony little knuckles. Even then I was more a boy than John. For I refused to cry, biting my lip and suffering in silence.

When two strokes had been given to each hand, he sat hunched and sobbing with tears running down his face. A small boy who had lost all self-respect and from whom all the bounce and self-confidence had been driven.

I sat there watching, as the tawse was again applied to his right hand. And then again to his left. And after each stroke I recited the shaming little rhyme

"Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby John
Sitting in shame with his little dress on"

Miss Strang frowned, her lips tight together. She looked at the boy before her, his face contorted and his cheeks sodden. The front of the velvet dress also wet with his tears. She waited as he heaved and shook with desperate sobbing.

"Oliver, go and fetch a sponge from the washroom. Soak it and then wring it well out. And bring a towel, too."

She took the sponge and gently wiped my brother's face and brow, and then dried them. She ran her hand through his hair, tidying it back.

He looked at her out of his tear-filled eyes. A look of desperation. But he said nothing. He knew he had failed. Failed to show even a scintilla of the manliness that she was looking for. He had wept and screamed in his agony. He was small and ashamed and filled with dread at what was still to come.

She let him wait for a moment.

"John, I granted you the opportunity to show courage in the face of adversity. To demonstrate that you are soon to be a ten year old boy and not a little girl of five. That you could take your punishment like a man."

She paused.

"And did you?"

His eyes were still full of tears.

Well, did you?"

"N . . . no . . . Miss Strang."

"No. you did not. You are a disappointment. I am inclined to make you wear that dress for a week until you can show me that you have even half the spunk that a boy of your age should have. Well?"

"Please, Miss Strang . . . please. I am sorry."

"John, I do not want to hear that you are sorry. I do not want to hear excuses and girlish pleading. Do you understand?"

He hung his head.

What seemed like an eternity passed before she spoke again.

"John, believe me, I am not expecting too much from you. To insist that you should take your punishment like a man is a kindness. In a few more years you will be going away to school. If you are a little cry baby there, I cannot begin to think how you will suffer. How you will be teased and tortured."

He sat biting his lip and said nothing.

"I may be strict and have high expectations. But that is for your own good."

She stroked back the hair that had flopped over his brow.

"There are four more strokes to give, John. Two to each hand. If you take those as a boy should take them, without girlish tears and tantrums, then I will restore you to your proper clothes. If not, then you will be dressed as a girl for the rest of the week."

She smiled.

"It is entirely up to you. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"I said 'Did you understand?'"

"Yes . . . yes, Miss Strang."

"Good. But there are the twelve long division problems that remain undone. You will compete those first."

She fetched a pair of scissors from her desk and cut the tape binding him to the chair. He lifted his hands and held them awkwardly in front of him. Miss Strang held them and examined them. The knuckles were bruised and the skin broken. The palms were red and raw.

"Go and sit at your desk. And I want no mistakes and am looking for an exceptionally neat presentation. Is that understood? And take your dolly with you."

"Yes, Miss Strang."

She gave a faint smile.

"And please remember it is page 34 that you must turn to. Quickly now. There is much to accomplish."

He sat at his desk. There was a hopeless lethargy about his movements. With difficulty he found the appropriate page in the book, and then reached out for his pencil. But when he tried to grasp it in his numb and smarting fingers, he found it impossible to hold. He raised an arm to attract Miss Strang's attention.

"Please, Miss Strang."

"Yes, John?"

"Please, I can't hold my pencil properly."

"You surprise me, John. After a thorough tawsing, that is what anyone would expect."

"But . . . but how can I do my work?"

She gave a slight, dismissive shrug.

"That, John, is for you to answer. You were the one who failed to listen to instructions and wasted time on the wrong exercise. You were the boy who was inattentive and required punishment."

There was a look of hopeless desperation on his face. But I could see that mingled with it was an angry resentment. I wondered whether Miss Strang had seen it, too.

I watched as John instead of a pencil, tried to grasp his pen and dip it in the ink. Why he should attempt that when his hand was trembling was impossible to say. A blot appeared on the page. He stared at it, biting his lip.

(To be continued)